


The Signal

by ToothPasteCanyon (DannyFenton123)



Series: Transcendence AU in Space [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 15:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13954587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyFenton123/pseuds/ToothPasteCanyon
Summary: Far into the future, Dr Atanya and her son go to explore a mysterious signal coming from the Earth.





	1. Chapter 1

                “Final check. Oxygen generator: secure. Space skin: fully operational. Magnetic levitation pack: completely ionised and ready for deployment. Emotional state… Well, how’re you feeling, mum?”

                Dr Atanya pressed the voice button on her space suit. Her voice came through with a crackle: “Couldn’t be more excited, Snaff. This is the day. This is the day!”

                “I know.” Snaff grinned. “So yeah, I guess I’ll put down questionable for that answer, sounds good with you?”

                “Oh, ha ha. You’re hilarious.”

                “Why, thank you. I try my best.” He finished typing on the computer and strode over to the teleportation controls. “Ready when you are.”

                Atanya switched on her maglev and immediately jumped into the air, where she hung suspended a certain height off the ground. After adjusting the controls to levitate a little lower, she gave Snaff the thumbs up.

                “Alright. Be safe, mum. I love you.”

                She blew him a kiss just before the teleporter fired, sending her down to the surface of the Earth in the blink of an eye.

                Earth. You may be imagining quite a different scene than the one that confronted Dr Atanya when she materialised. The sun it orbited had blown out into a red supergiant many years before her time, boiling the oceans, stripping away the atmosphere, incinerating all life that still remained. Everything was dead; all that was left was a chunk of molten rock steaming under the unending scrutiny of the elderly star.

                Everything was dead… and yet, there was a signal. Every seventy years or so, powerful magical energy would show up intermittently for a couple of weeks, and then disappear without a trace. No spaceship orbited the Earth during these events, and no life signatures were detected on the surface when scanned. Magical experts the galaxy over were stumped. Now, the signal had finally resurfaced, and Dr Atanya was about to figure this mystery out.

                “Alright,” She could hear Snaff through her radio. “Video feed is a go. Wow. Make sure you’ve got your suit temp set low, mum.”

                Atanya nodded. “I’ve already done that. Hey, can you pull up the magic tracker? I have literally no idea where I’m supposed to be going right now.”

                “I got it.” There was the sound of typing. “It’s being uploaded right now. And… done. Can you see it?”

                Her visor beeped, and Atanya watched as the land of lava before her was overlaid with little dark blue lines, indicating traces of magic; this was great for historic sites, where they used to have houses they protected with wards. She waited patiently for them to finish showing up, but to her growing surprise, they kept coming, kept filling in until she had quite the detailed picture of a small town against the orange glow. Her eyes widened; wow, she’d never been able to count the individual steps up to a house built millennia ago, see the grain on a wooden door that had long rotted away. There were places where an older house had clearly been knocked down and rebuilt, and those lines intermingled in a confusing mess. The town of Gravity Falls was absolutely thrumming with magic, even after all this time. Wow.

                “Mum?”

                “Oh! Oh, yes, I can see it.” Atanya floated up to the magical impression of some sort of pool. She stared at the chainlink fence, outlined in blue, wanting so badly to touch it but not daring to break the illusion. “This is… amazing. So much residual magic… I can’t believe- I mean, look at this!”

                “I am. No wonder this place used to be the centre of the Transcendence- shit.”

                “What?”

                “The signal. It’s gone again.”

                “The signal.” Atanya blinked, gliding back from the fence. “Right.”

                “What do we do?” Snaff heaved a sigh and began typing away furiously. “Yeah, it’s there one moment, gone the next. Agh, it’s so irregular; there’s absolutely no way to tell when – or if! - this thing is coming back. Great! Perfect.”

                A bubble of hot lava burst under Atanya’s feet, and she jerked them up. “Hey, hey, calm down. It’s fine, Snaff. It’s only been a few hours since it started broadcasting, so there’s no way it’s gone for good already.”

                “Yeah… yeah, you’re right. I’m just… I don’t want to lose this when we’re so close. It’s making me tense.”

“I get that. It’s a once in a lifetime kind of thing. But hey, let’s get ready before the signal comes back. Can you relay me the last known location?”

“Yeah, I can do that… done. And I’ll keep scanning for when it pops up?”

                “Sounds good to me!” The coordinates popped up in her visor. “Oh, nice, we’re rather close. It looks like it’s down this path.”

                “Down the path?”

                “This path.” Atanya floated out of the pool area, into what looked like some sort of break in a magical barrier; thousands of straight vertical lines stood out in high contrast to the glowing lava.

                “Oooh, I see. Yeah, it looks like it’s that way.”

But at the top they started fanning out… wait, were these the magical footprints of trees? Wow, they probably were. She started moving forwards, looking up at the long dead trees, and the huge sun stretching from horizon to horizon. This was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

                “Still nothing yet.” Snaff said amid the ambient noise of his typing.

                “Don’t worry. It’ll come back.” She cracked a smile. “Hey, if anyone here should be worrying, it’s me, because you’ll still be alive by the time it next comes round. Me, I’ll be dead!”

“Wha- Mum! Don’t say that!”

“It’s true! I’ll be dead, and you’ll be a pottering old man, spinning yarns about ye olden times and telling kids to get off your lawn.”

That drew a chuckle out of him. “I guess I’d be taking after you then.”

                “Oh, you’re cheeky. What are you talking about?”

                “You’re the one who hoards beakers on their station and insists that yes, all of them are currently being used in an experiment and no, you can’t have one, get off my lawn.”

                “I do need them!”

                “Yeah, but all of them? All the time?”

                “I’d rather have too many than too few!” There came to a turn in the path, and she pulsed towards the right. “Plus I paid for them, so yeah, you should get off of my lawn.”

                “You’re ridiculous. I love you.”

                “I love you too, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up my beakers!”

                “Heh... alright.” He started typing again. “You’re getting rather close. See anything?”

                She looked, and she saw she was coming to some sort of turn in the path; beyond it was another messy jumble of lines… very bright lines. Strong magic. That wasn’t surprising.

                “Yeah. Hold on…”

                The path widened out, and Atanya found herself in some sort of clearing, looking at… something. It was a building, she was sure of that much, but it seemed to have been knocked down and rebuilt so many times, each incarnation layered over and over with copious amounts of magic, that the entire thing seemed less like a house and more like a thrumming blue knot with some stray walls sticking out here and there.

                Snaff whistled. “Wow. No wonder this thing is giving off a signal.”

“Yeah… but that wouldn’t explain why it’s so irregular.” She thought for a moment. “I’m going to explore.”

                “Alright. I’ll keep an eye on the signal.”

                Atanya gently pulsed towards the building. She passed by one final tree… no, that wasn’t a tree. It looked like some sort of tall pole, with faces carved into it. Creepy. And by that, a swingset, three seats suspended just inches above where the lava lake now flowed.

                She passed by the unmistakable shape of two gravestones, huddled together by the entrance. Atanya shivered and moved on.

                As she got closer to the building, she could start to follow some of the lines to see individual structures. In front of her was some sort of porch; from there, she could see it was connected to a steep triangular roof, with some sort of sign on the side? It was hard to make out, and after a minute she gave up.

                “Hmm. I don’t think I’m going to find anything.”

                After a moment, Snaff replied. “Aren’t you gonna go inside?”

                “I can barely see what’s going on outside. It’s just going to be a bunch of lines… though I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Hold on.”

                She floated past the door, into a room of sorts. She called it a room, because it was almost impossible to tell anything further than that. There was a general square-shaped lack of magical residue in front of her, surrounded by such a colossal cluster of lines that it was hard to see the actual lava beneath her feet.

                Snaff chuckled. “Wow. I guess you were right, mum. That is… that is hard to look at. Wait, why are you going forwards?”

                “I’m going to check out the back.”

                “Oh, fair enough. I guess- wait.”

                Atanya stopped. “What?”

                “I think I’m getting something!”

                “The signal?”

                “I’m checking now… yes, yes! It matches! The signal is literally just behind you, mum! Can you see it?”

                Eyes wide, Atanya looked back. She could see something! It was dark, mostly obscured by the magical lines, so she quickly pulsed forwards.

                And then, she saw it.

                She saw him.

                A dark figure, an absence of light sticking out against the glowing lava sea. Head bowed. Shoulders broken.

                Kneeling by the memory of a long-gone grave.

                “Oh. Oh, no.” Snaff’s voice was barely a whisper, but the figure’s head jerked up at the noise. He locked glowing yellow eyes onto Atanya, and she gasped.

                “Mum? I’m getting you out of there, hold on!”

                Atanya stood frozen as the figure rose, unfurling wings woven from shadow. He took a step forwards, walking on lava. And still he stared at her.

                Her suit beeped. One second, he was staring at her, and the next…

                She was back on the ship. She blinked a few times as the bright afterimage of the lava faded.

                “You’re okay!” Footsteps, followed by Snaff tackling her in a hug. “I can’t believe- that was Alcor the Dreambender! And you were right there, and… wow, I must’ve gotten you out in the nick of time! So Alcor’s the source of the signal; what’s he doing back on Earth, Mum? Mum? Are you… okay?”

                Atanya looked down at her son, his eyes wide and shining with worry. She breathed in, and she breathed out.

                Then she said, “I saw his face.”

                Snaff said nothing.

                “I saw his eyes. I’ve… I’ve never seen so much… so much pain.” With shaking hands, Atanya took off her helmet. “I'm sorry. I-I need to lie down.”

                She passed by Snaff, who started to follow her before second guessing himself and simply watching her go. He wandered back to his station, and glanced at the display.

                The signal, he noticed, had disappeared once more.


	2. Chapter 2

                Northwest Manor sat high on a hill, an elaborate, imposing structure walled off from the forest below with an equally imposing brick fence. But on this day, the sun shone on its dark roof tiles, and the wrought iron gates were open wide.

On this day, there was a picnic going on in the courtyard. Far more people than had ever attended an annual Northwest feast were generating blankets on the grass and sitting down with their families. Children laughed and played with each other; a sizeable group near the corner tried to see how fast they could fly from one side of the fence to the other with their hoverskates. In the centre of the gardens, just in front of the house, a sleek black platform had been set up with a podium at the front. At the back of this platform, a group of people in formal attire stood. They talked for a time with smiles on their faces before two of them departed towards the podium.

As they approached, heads turned towards the front, and a hush settled over the chattering crowd. Stepping up to the podium first was a very pale, scaled alien with one brilliant blue eye; just behind them stood a human man with iron-grey hair and a smile creasing his aged face. He waved to the crowd as the alien cleared their throat.

                “Welcome, welcome, everyone.” Spoke the alien with a gravelly accent. “It is such an honour to welcome one and all to the official opening ceremony of the Gravity Falls Historical Recreation Park! You’ve all worked very hard on this, and I applaud your noble dedication to the preservation of history. So, with the power vested in me as Galactic Governor of the Kepler-22 System, I officially declare this park open!”

                As soon as those words left their mouth, the crowd erupted into cheering and applause. People stood up from their picnic blankets, whooping and clapping. The Governor turned and shook hands with the old man before letting him up to the podium; this generated another round of clapping.

                He waited patiently for it to die down, before leaning into the microphone with a grin. “Thank you, thank you. Well, that was quite the reception, wasn’t it? Is everyone excited? We did it!”

                The applause was deafening. He waved it down.

                “I’m very proud to be here, standing here, in Gravity Falls. As many of you know, I’m Matthew Atanya; my mother and I headed the Mourning Demon Expedition, which did inspire this project. In the years since that date, I became a historian. Not what I expected.” Matthew chuckled a little. “Not what anyone else expected either. Colleagues, friends - heck, even my mum - they’d ask me, ‘Why did you quit science? Why would you do that? Why history instead of science?’ And you know what? This project is the answer. Gravity Falls is the answer.

                “Five hundred years ago, the last Earth habitants fled Earth for the stars, and today, we exist across multiple galaxies, countless starsystems, and more planets than there were grains of sand on our home planet’s beaches. And yet, as we expanded, as we pushed onwards to the future, records show that Earth-hailing artists of the time were looking further and further into the past. We were worried that we would forget where we came from.

                That was five hundred years ago. Did we forget?” He smiled. “Did we forget? From where I’m standing, in Gravity Falls, I don’t think so.”

                People began to stand up, clap, cheer. Matthew tried to speak again but was drowned out; he chose to wait patiently instead of waving them down. With a grin creasing his face, he looked out into the crowd, at all these people-

                And he noticed someone. Close to the front, sitting by himself, clapping slowly. Brown hair, dark suit. Golden eyes that winked at Matthew when they made contact.

Alcor the Dreambender. Matthew’s smile fell right off his face, just in time for the clapping to die down. He struggled to regain his composure.

“Um…” Matthew looked down at his notes, trying very hard not to glance at the demon. “Where, um, where was I… right. Uh… I don’t… I don’t think so.  As I was saying… history. History connects us with the past. It grounds us. It lets us move forwards. Without it…”

He risked a glimpse. Alcor was staring at him, solemn and unblinking. The demon nodded for him to continue.

“Without it… we’d be lost. And so I thank each and every one of you, for all your hard work in this project. You’ve kept history alive, and future generations will come here, to Gravity Falls, to celebrate it, to feel grounded, and to move forwards into endless possibilities. Thank you for your contribution.”

There was a thunderous applause, even louder than before, but to Matthew it all seemed like a dull roaring in his ears as he watched Alcor slowly stand up. The demon tipped his hat, turned around, and began to walk away.

No. No, he couldn’t disappear now. Matthew hurried off the stage, brushing past a confused project manager as she walked to the podium. He skipped steps down the stairs and slipped through crowds – some of them said things, gave him pats on the back, asked him questions, but he didn’t care.

                He needed to find Alcor. He needed to. He _needed_ to.

                Matthew staggered out of the back of the crowd, out of the iron gates. He looked around, breathing hard – where was he? No, no, no, he couldn’t be gone!

                “Hello, Snaff.”

                Matthew turned and there he was. Leaning against the brick wall of the Northwest mansion, Alcor was smiling at him. It was an afterthought of a smile, a quick raising of the lips that neither reached his eyes nor helped to conceal that solemn expression, that quiet unhappiness about him. His golden eyes wandered about the environment, but after a few seconds of silence they focused back on Matthew. His smile stretched.

                “It is Snaff, right?”

                Matthew shook his head. “Matthew, it’s Matthew. Only my mum called me that.”

                “Ah. Sorry.” His smile faded. He slowly peeled himself off the wall. “I should go-”

                “Wait! Don’t go, not yet, I-I have so many questions! What were you doing on Earth? What was that gravestone? Why are you here?” Matthew saw a larger grin stretch across Alcor’s mouth, and he remembered he was talking to a demon. “I-I mean, I have payment. We can make a deal. Your knowledge in exchange for-“

                “No, no, that won’t be necessary.” Alcor shook his head, chuckling. Matthew wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. “I’ve been in the Mindscape too long. You humans, you’re _hilarious_.”

                “Um…”

                Alcor started to move away from the mansion, and motioned for him to follow. “Walk with me, Matthew.”

                Matthew stood frozen. He looked to the Northwest courtyard, where crowds were breaking into applause, and back at Alcor, who had nearly disappeared down the forested path. He hurried to catch up.

                “So my… my questions?” Matthew slowed to a halt, huffing and puffing; he was getting old. “Can you tell me what happened that day?”

                “I can.” Alcor glanced over at him. “This is important to you?”

                “Important to me? Are you kidding me? My mum and I spent years trying to contact you. The best demonologists in the galaxy couldn’t get you to show up, and now… here you are.”

                That empty smile again. “Yes, here I am. In _Gravity Falls_.” They passed a pool, surrounded by a chain link fence. “I used to swim there, you know. And, look, over there: that goes down to the lake. I went fishing there! It all looks so familiar… so empty.”

                Matthew didn’t know what to say to that. “We, uh, we used real lumber. And authentic 20th century construction methods.”

                “Oh, isn’t that _lovely_.”

                "Is... something wrong?”

                “Something’s always wrong.” Alcor grumbled, then pressed his hands to his forehead. He let out a deep sigh. “No, come on. Ugh, I’m… I’m sorry. It’s great, it’s really great, but I really shouldn’t have come. I-I’m not ready.”

                Matthew said nothing. He kept walking alongside the demon, watching him carefully. The trudging of their feet in the dirt and the ambient birdsong – genetically engineered to imitate authentic Oregon wildlife – were the only sounds to be heard as they approached the main town.

                As dirt roads turned to concrete paths, Alcor spoke again.

                “Your questions.” He finished rubbing his eyes, and looked at Matthew. “What did… what did you want to ask me?”

                “Oh, uh… Why were you at Gravity Falls? The original Gravity Falls?”

                Alcor snorted. “Oh, I’m definitely not ready for this. Well, I happened to have lived here – there - for a while. I mean, you add up all the years, it probably comes to over a thousand. I don’t know, I wasn’t counting.”

                Over a thousand years? Matthew stumbled over his steps; that would certainly explain the ridiculous levels of magic present at the original site.

                “Yeah…” Alcor pointed out a building. “Hey, look, that’s the old biker bar! It’s a bit too quiet for one, though. No bouncer out front… it’s weird.”

                “They’ll be people when it’s open.”

                “That’s not the same, though. They’ll always be new people, but… there’s never gonna be that bouncer guy, again. There’s never gonna be Lazy Susan cooking up pancakes in that diner over there, either. They’re all gone, and they’re not coming back.” Alcor’s shoulders slumped. “They’ll always be new people. And then those people die and get replaced by newer people. But I’m still here. I’m always still here.”

                Matthew nodded. “Ah. I’m sorry to hear that. You know, I lost my mother, five years ago. That feeling that you’ll never get them back… it’s hard.”

                Alcor looked at him very strangely, and then broke out into laughter. Matthew raised an eyebrow.

                “What?”

                “You humans really are hilarious! Hahaha! Are you really trying to lecture me about grief right now? Ooh, ‘it’s hard’. You think I don’t know that?”

                “I was trying to be-“

                “Because you don’t understand. You can’t understand – hah! – the position I’m in. You’ve got, what, thirteen years left on your clock? Hahaha!”

                “Wait, what?”

Alcor’s laughter faded. “And then… and then, you get to die and forget about this whole mess. Me… I never get to forget. Never.”

                “Uh… what did you say about thirteen years?”

“Oh, right, humans get freaked out by that kind of thing.” Alcor waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a ballpark measure, give or take a few months. I mean years. Don’t worry about it.”

                They were leaving the town, now, going down another wooded path. There was a fork in the road, and Alcor steered them right. They walked in silence until Alcor cleared his throat.

                “So you lost your mother recently?”

                “Five years ago. Yeah. I miss her every day.” Matthew’s face hardened. “You gonna laugh at me again or something?”

                “No, no. I’m sorry, that wasn’t about you. That was more about me. Go on.”

                “What do you want me to say? I mean, she was pretty awesome. She did a lot of good with her scientific discoveries – she was always way better at that stuff than me.” He smiled. “She had a great sense of humor, too. Could make you laugh any day of the week.”

                “She sounds like a great person. I would’ve loved to meet her.”

                “She would have loved to meet you too. You know, after the expedition she tried so hard to find you. Couldn’t stop talking about that look in your eyes; she’d said she’d never seen so much pain in one expression.”

                “Oh.” Alcor looked down. “Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t meet her.”

                “It’s okay.”

                The path was beginning to open up now, trees, shearing away to reveal a building standing in the middle of a clearing. It had tall, triangular roofing, with a sign propped on the side spelling ‘Mystery Shack’. Not far from it stood a totem pole, the likeness of a bird carved into the top of the wood.

                Alcor stopped in his tracks. “Wow.”

                “Yeah, this was… tricky.” Matthew scratched his head. “So many magical memories here, I had to make an entirely new system to pick up the oldest traces. That’s what we went with. Do you… know this place?”

                “It’s my home.” Alcor took a few steps forward, almost reverently. “It changed so much through the years though. I never… in all my time… thought I would see it like this again.” He ran his fingers over a fence. “Step right up to the Mystery Shack, folks. Heh. Wow.”

                Matthew followed him a few paces back, watching him as he explored the Mystery Shack, touching every little detail like he was trying to convince himself that it was real. Finally, he reached the front of the house where the two graves stood, and it was as if all the air went out of him.

                Head bowed. Shoulders broken.

Matthew had seen this scene before, a lifetime ago on a planet of death and fire. Now he saw it with lush, green trees, with birds singing all around, with the gentle dings of a nearby windchime. Hesitantly, he approached the demon.

“You know…” Matthew started, and almost immediately trailed off. He was intruding, he should go, he should-

“What?” It was completely flat, devoid of emotion, but nevertheless an invitation to keep speaking. Matthew cleared his throat.

“We, uh, we really tried to decipher the names on these gravestones, but we weren’t able to. In the end, we just left them blank.” He hesitated. “If you want, we could get them properly engraved.”

                Alcor didn’t say anything. For the longest time, he knelt there. Head bowed. Shoulders broken.

                Then: “Mabel. This one was Mabel.” He pointed to the one on his right. “And this one was Henry.” A long pause. “You don’t have to engrave them. I know who they are.”

                “I see.” Matthew nodded. “They must have been very special people.”

                “Oh, they were. I miss them every day.” The ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “I remember Mabel used to have this, this pig, she called it Waddles. It grew into this 200 pound animal that still thought he could sit on your lap. It took weeks for Henry and I to convince her to keep him outside; we built a pen for it and everything. It was a nicer room than anything in the actual house.”

                “That’s funny.”

                “It was hilarious. One day we caught Acacia – her daughter – sleeping in the pen instead of her bed because it was so comfy.” He looked up. “You know why she did that? Because her Mom told her that’s what she did when she couldn’t get to sleep!”

                Matthew chucked, and Alcor joined in, a little. Then the laughter slowly faded, as did the shine in his golden eyes. Matthew finally realized what his mother meant when she said she’d never seen so much pain in one expression.

                Alcor turned away, back to the graves. “I haven’t thought about that memory in a long time. It was millions of years ago.”

                After a moment’s pause, Matthew eased himself down next to Alcor, brushing his grey hairs out of his face. “So, uh… what else can you remember about them?”

                “So much.” He looked back, a little twinkle in his eyes. “Enough for you to get bored.”

                “Hey, I’m not getting up any time soon, not with these joints.”

                Alcor laughed. “Alright, alright. Well, let me see. Oh, I love this one. So it’s the middle of summer, and one day Mabel decides she’s had enough of the heat. She goes and builds this huuuge waterslide…”

                And so the old man and the demon sat in front of graves, and told each other stories like a pair of long lost friends reuniting. And, for however briefly, the cold cloud of isolation that followed Alcor the Dreambender was lifted.

                It would return, as it always would. But not today.


End file.
